“Peter Walker Has the Same Problem With Farmers”

With the OTT Book now on sale, what better time to take a look at some other wonderful telly-related books from the ages? We’ll be posting one (or two) page (or pages) from a different book each and every day until we forget to, we’ve covered all the TV-tie-in books in our collection, or we spontaneously combust. Place your bets.

As pretty much all the books in question have long since been deleted by their publishers, there shouldn’t be any legal difficulty there, we hope. Unlike all those superinjunctions that we've blown wide open on our Prestel page which luckily no-one has noticed yet for some reason. In any case, we’re putting these scans online under the banner of ‘BrokenTV’, and no-one else. Just in case anyone starts waving their lawyers around.

Today! To the world of 1980s politics, and Not The General Election (by, as far as we can tell, John Lloyd, Sean Hardie, Laurie Rowley, Colin Gilbert and Phil Differ – the credits panel is very much In The Style Of How Viz Does It – Sphere Books 1983).

Bit of a strange one, in a way, this. While the writers of the book were involved in contributing to Not The Nine O'clock News on BBC-2 (well, as far as we know, pretty much any comedy writer of the age capable of sitting at a typewriter chipped in with something for the show), no member of the show’s cast was involved in contributing to the book, unless you include the saucy shot of Pamela Stephenson on the front cover, and the series had ended the year before the book was published. Indeed, the only clear indication that the book really is an official part of the Not canon is the part at the end of the flannel panel which reads “the whole lot copyrighted by those awfully unpleasant people at Not The Nine O'clock News Limited”.

That’s not to say the book isn’t any good, as it’s very good. Highlights include a spoof Radio Times page for election day, a map of Who Owns Britain, and the above, a letter from “Saaaaaaaaaaatchi & Saaaaaaaaaaatchi inc.” on their strategy to promote The Conservative & Unionist Party.

A page (or two) from a different book tomorrow. Until then, why not take time to have a look at the television-related book that all the cooler BBC Four viewers are referring to as OTTTBBOTBTVWNNNTTAN (Off The Telly: The Best Bits of the British TV Website 1999-2009)? Available from Lulu.com in paperback for just £16.99 (that's just £0.00005 per word!), or £3.99 for the PDF ebook version, with any profits going to Alzheimer's charities.